This is a question I ask myself every time I start a new novel. Giving reasons to a character for their behavior can be complicated. As the author, I need to justify why any of them do the things they do. But when they’re a louse, it needs to be double-justified. “Just because” doesn’t cut it. So bad guys can be tough.

And then there’s the fact that usually in each book the villain is new. It’s not a familiar character. Arriving at the who, what, and why often takes time and can be a problem. So I try to be methodical and logical. First I start with the dastardly thing I need them to do for the story. Kidnapping? Extortion? Theft? Murder? All of the above? When they are rotten to the core, I have them extend their evil intent to an animal. I DO NOT, however, allow any negative actions done to any animal in my books. It is intent only. I write Cozies. And this is one of the reasons why.

In Death Runs in the Family, Book 3 of the Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries, I have the villain catnap Baba and Tugger (the two cats belonging to Lee, the protagonist), with the threat of harming them if Lee doesn’t stop her investigation. This may have worked well for the book, but it did not work well for me.

I was interrupted by an urgent family matter and had to stop writing for three days directly after the villain put the cats in the back of a station wagon and started her journey to Las Vegas. I woke up in the middle of the night several days later distraught about these cats having no food or water for all that time. It didn’t matter they were fictional. It didn’t matter I was dog-tired. Excuse me, cat-tired. I leapt out of bed with a “No, no, no, no, no. I can’t stand it!” A shocked husband demanded to know what was wrong. I told him I had to rescue the cats NOW or I would never get back to sleep. Knowing me after decades of marriage, he merely nodded, rolled over, and started snoring again.

I sat down at the keyboard and for the next seven hours typed my heart out, only stopping now and then to stretch my legs and have more coffee. The storyline continued with Lee finding out where the station wagon was going by the microchips embedded in the cats (modern science can be a glorious thing). Lee then flew to Las Vegas to coincide with the arrival of the station wagon. Once there, she was joined by a fellow investigator. Together they rescued the cats from the back of the parked wagon while said villain was in a casino whooping it up. By now I hated this scumbag.

As it had only been a matter of hours in fictional time and not an actual three days, the cats were not starving or dying of thirst, but merely scared half to death. Thus, once Lee and the cats were reunited, there was a lot of hugging and purring. Then food and water for the felines and pizza for the protagonist. Peperoni. As Tugger and Baba were alright, Lee could concentrate on capturing this monster who not only catnapped her pets but, coincidentally, murdered somebody.

Did I forget to mention that? Anyway, by now this had become a very personal issue for Lee. Steal and threaten to hurt my cats, will ya? There is nothing like a hopping mad protagonist determined to bring a villain to justice to move a story along.

Back to me and that event. Late that morning, after I was satisfied that everyone in the story (except the villain) were happy, I went back to sleep. But I learned a valuable lesson. All my characters live in my head 24/7. I need to remember that. I need to be careful. I can only have my villains do so much before I start paying for it. They are part of my being. And for the record, this villain, a young woman in her mid-twenties, had all kinds of reasons for behaving the way she did. I wound up feeling sorry for her. But that didn’t stop me from putting her in prison for a very long time. After all, murder is murder.

A Pause

This Saturday straddles the holidays Christmas and New Year’s, a time washed with good will and optimism. Each holiday alone offers a topic relevant and pertinent in today’s world. I could talk about my gratitude for having close friends, or I could focus on the excitement of going into the year ahead. But I have nothing new to say about either one. Instead a friend and I talked this week about the word pause, and that’s the subject that feels most appropriate for me at this time.

We rush headlong from one activity to the next, some of us weary and some of us energized by how much we can get accomplish and what the season holds. I could do that but instead I want to take this time of being neither here nor there to step back and pause, to take a break thoughtfully, not because I feel I need it or want it. I’m taking a break, pausing, because this is something to treasure—a moment when I don’t have to move forward or back, rush ahead or finish up something left behind me, to clear my desk before covering it with the next task.

This isn’t as far removed from a writing life as one might think. Whenever I finish a story or novel I set it aside and stop thinking about it. This gives us as writers distance on our work, so we can come to it with a fresh pair of eyes after three or four weeks (or even a year). But it can do more than that. 

A pause in the work of creating something, a season, or any time of year, gives me an opportunity to come back to myself, to step away from the person whom I created in order to write the story, call her the narrator or protagonist or something else. Or in my day to day life, the person who gets things done, checking each item off on a real or imagined to-do list. 

A pause allows, even encourages me to step into another space, one that is walled off from the world in motion and complete in itself. This is not a moment of purpose, to wind down, lower my blood pressure or find the time to assess my upcoming tasks. The pause is its own purpose, to listen to random thought, to discover once again what it is to just be, to exist, to watch the world go by, to slow down enough to notice the world is going by, ever moving around us.

Perhaps this pause is a meditation without the Buddhist directive to “empty the mind,” ignore thoughts or feelings and keep the mind blank. My pause is a long moment to heighten the awareness that I exist. I am here in this place, touching the fabric of the seat of my desk chair, studying the color of the dyed leather desk top, hearing the occasional car pass my window.

When my mind tells me this moment has passed I know the lights will be brighter, the music will be sweeter, and I will enjoy them all more deeply. But I will also linger in the moment more often, knowing that life is truer when savored than gulped greedily. This weekend I straddle the holidays that define our year, and find a moment that is more, that is all of life held lightly in the palm, awakening me to all that is beyond accomplishment, goals, appearances, rushing thoughts. My moment as me entirely with the Universe sitting within my half-curled fingers.

Hello, Ladies ~

I hope everyone has their decorations in place, their presents wrapped, and their Christmas dinners planned.

My nine-foot decorated Christmas tree brings me so much joy that I’m tempted to leave it up until Valentine’s Day. Decorating my tree is my favorite part of the holiday. I love looking at each ornament, remembering the origin of every Santa, reindeer, or angel. Of course, I have a few non-traditional ornaments. There’s a unique half-avocado, a stack of books, and my oldest son’s clay handprint from his third-grade art project.

A few years ago, Norman and his family joined us for Thanksgiving, and the grandkids were excited to decorate my tree. It was fun to tell them stories behind some of the ornaments. And grandpa and I enjoyed watching them take turns hiding the dill pickle from each other.

This year, they spent the holiday with us again, and we had the tree ready for decorating. But time changes things, and our now 15 ½-year-old granddaughter, Sloan, preferred watching from the couch. 13-year-old Carter was on a mission to add as many decorations to his area of the tree as quickly as possible. Kendra and Norman handle the placement of ornaments on the tree’s higher branches.

At the end of a lovely visit, the Henson’s headed home, and I put the finishing touches on my decorations. Noticing a glass ball precariously hanging on another ornament, I moved it to a safer place on the tree.

“I bet you can’t leave the tree decorated the way it is this year,” my husband, Randy, said.

“Of course I can,” I replied and resisted moving some of the ornaments Carter had clustered together.

“You’re sure?” Randy tilted his head. “I know how you like certain ornaments in the front and hanging others together for a theme.”

“I think the tree looks beautiful just the way it is.” I smiled and walked away before I could move a glass snowman.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve stopped and looked at the ornaments on my tree. And though I haven’t moved any, Randy was right, I have always placed special decorations toward the front of my fake noble. But I also loved the way Norman, Kendra, and Carter decorated my tree. Sometimes, change is good and helps us see things in a different light.

I’m sure, like me, most of you have discovered that the holiday season’s festivities have made it hard to work on writing projects. But I still try to carve out an hour each day to write. Currently, I’m working on “Fatal Falls,” the 6^th book in my Stoneybrook Mystery Series. In this series, I have recurring characters, think “Virgin River,” and found myself wondering what might happen with the story if I placed the characters in uncomfortable scenarios.

Harley Harper, my heroine, finds herself struggling to connect with her partner, Sheriff Wyatt Stone, since he’s working three different cases. She’s being ghosted by her bestie, Busy, and is thrown into a situation that requires her to rely on Morgan Grey, who is interested in being more than friends. Wyatt’s dedication to his job is challenged when he and his deputies can’t catch a break in their hunt for a serial killer. The sheriff’s department is also spread thin as they race to rescue a kidnapped woman and try to find the person responsible for killing a Stoneybrook resident.

I also decided that some of my supporting characters should have interesting story arcs in this book, so I’m moving them from the back of the Christmas tree to front and center. Can Derrick locate the Stone family’s missing gold? Is Busy keeping something from Harley? Who in the sheriff’s department ends up taking a bullet for a colleague? Which character steps up to bring a serial killer to justice?

“Lost in Loreto” is the 5^th book in my Mexico Mayhem series, and I decided, once again, to approach character creation from a different perspective. All three main characters, heroine Scarlett, hero Javier, and villain Arlo, have serious anger issues from the beginning. So far, their individual challenges are creating an interesting story. Can Scarlett learn to work with Javier, who thinks he’s always right? Can Javier work with his brother-in-law, Dante, considering that both Dante and his father want Javier to pay for abandoning Gabriella? Can Arlo overcome his fiery temper and manage to woo his beautiful captive, Gabriella, into a willing relationship with him?

My beautiful tree watches over me as I write each morning. And though it’s the most wonderful time of year, it’s also a very busy time of year, so who has time to redecorate their tree? I love that embracing a different decorating scheme for my tree has also encouraged me to change my approach to my character’s stories and move them around my “story tree.”

Merry Christmas, Ladies. I hope you all have a lovely and blessed holiday!